Land Use Planning: Zoning for Social & Environmental Outcomes - Essay Sample

Introduction

Land use planning is the process of regulating the utilization of land to promote favorable social and environmental outcomes and encourage efficient use of resources. The land-use plan often results in land use regulation that encompasses zoning. Zoning thus regulates types of activities that get carried out in a given piece of land and space set aside for those activities. It also outlines how the business may have situated or shaped (Blomley, 83). The main aim of estate planning to influence the direct changes in land utilization for the maximum benefit of the users. Land-use planning has not got correctly practiced, resulting in a rapid increase in the cases of homelessness in California. The state of California in America consists of tens of thousands of people with no specific place to live. It has negatively affected the life of the students on community college campuses (Brown, 32). The vulnerable citizens in California are finding it difficult to better their lives through quality education. The rampant increase of homelessness in California has been championed by the lack of state to provide adequate housing facilities, an increase in unemployment, and poverty that has confined some citizens to live in streets (Barbour, 73). The community college students that are homeless get compelled to sleep in their cars in their campus parking lots. The rapid increase in homelessness in California community colleges resulted in a crisis that triggered Sacramento Assemblymember Mark Berman to move Assembly Bill 302 to address the issue. The Mark Berman Assembly Bill 302 pushed for community colleges to grant overnight access to campus student parking facilities to all the homeless students enrolled in coursework and have paid enrollment fees. The bill also required all the governing boards in all the community colleges to develop an implementation strategy that would include Students overnight parking form, specific area designation for parking, and parking rules thin the campus premises.

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The issue is resulting in Homeless students and the reason they can't afford a place to live in California.

In California, the number of cases of homelessness is increasing among college campus students due to financial constraints that affect most of their families. These financial conflicts have limited most students in California access to quality education. These constraints among the families get championed by factors such as lack of sufficient income among most of the families in the state. There a high increase in poverty due to unemployment, and few individuals who are working earn a little money that cannot sustain their families. The California state government that keeps on increasing the housing rent makes it difficult for low-income earners and unemployed individuals to conducive housing for living. Thus they are compelled to live in the streets. The continuous increase in poverty among the many families in the state, the youth from these families aspires to join colleges and other institutions of higher learning. Still, they lack the necessary financial support and awareness to achieve their dreams.

The increased cases of parental conflict in California state have also contributed to the homeless of many students who are looking forward to bettering their lives through acquiring quality education for the higher institution of learning. Some youths in California are suffering from abduction, violence, and mental abuse from their parents. Therefore, many children find it difficult to continue living in their homes with their parents, and they end up finding themselves in unstable housing environments. The students from these types of families who are eager to join colleges and the universities lack financial aid from their parents, and they choose to live without quality education against their will.

In California, it is becoming complicated to find a home near the school because the federal government in the United States of America has continuously increased the rate of housing that does not match the income of the citizens in California state. There is a constant decline in the federal government subsidization of the housing rent for the low-income earners in the colleges and other higher-level institutions of learning. Thus the students who cannot afford to pay full housing rent on their own in colleges are subjected to live in their cars during their studies.

Stories of College Students

Homelessness has been on the high increase in California State among college students, and it has negatively affected the life and study of many students in the community college campuses. Some students in the college campuses share their life story on psychological and dehumanizing challenges they went through due to unsafe houses they used to during their studies. Continuous increase in the rent of the accommodation for the students on the campuses, some students were tempted to give up in their studies. A student in Palomar college gives the stressful life experience he went through during his study time. The biggest challenge he went through as a student is that he used to sleep in his car and that there was no safe place to park the car overnight. The student also said that it was tough for him to find time to carry on his homework. Matthew Bodo, a student in foothill college in California, says that due to lack of dormitory in the college. He spent about two years as a full-time student and a full-time worker living in his car as the only logical place he could sleep. He says that it was difficult to carry on his studies during his free time, and he used to feel insecure during the night while sleeping in his car.

The federal government of the United States of America should subsidize the housing rent in California to aid the cost of living for low-income earners, and to helps the youth of vulnerable citizens to acquire quality education. The state government, in collaboration with the federal government, should give the grant to community students that would minimize the cost of living and help them to acquire quality education. The California state government should provide free parking space to improve the distance learners to better their life by receiving quality education without harassment from the government.

Parking Lots for Students is good

Assembly Bill 302 is a bill that was passed in the California Assembly by Mark Berman to push for the community college campuses to grant the overnight students access to campus parking facilities for the students that are homeless to sleep in their cars. Mark Berman passed the bill after realizing that the students got denied access to parking facilities in the colleges that resulted in the homelessness crisis and stigmatization among the vulnerable students. The law required the Board of Governors of the California community campuses to end the homeless crisis of the weak students that had enrolled for coursework and paid for enrolment fees.

My personal opinion on Assembly bill 302 is that the state government of California should offer assistance to the vulnerable members of the community conducive environment to receive education and lower the parking fees. The state government, in collaboration with the federal government of the united states, should provide funds to the community colleges in California that would aid in the building of the hostels to provide accommodation to the homeless and are willing to receive an education.

Effect of Homelessness

The community college students that are dealing homelessness with homelessness experiences a lot of stress during their study time. The students that are not in the streets and are, but they have no specific and regular place to sleep develops mental stress that interferes with their education, and they can't perform well in their classes (Infranca, 38). In California, the college students that used to live in their car during their study time and did not get provided free and specific parking facilities developed emotional instabilities that adversely affected their course work performance. They could carry on their study well during the day and developed fear during the night as they had no safe and specific lace to sleep. They thus developed a lot of doubt about their future and temptations to drop out of colleges. Continuous increase in the housing rent for the community college students contributed to the homelessness of the student from the unemployed parents, and they got subjected to a lack of adequate food during their time in college (Trounstine, 88). Lack of specific and regular places to rest and sleep subjected many students to hunger as they could not get sufficient time to prepare food and adequate finance to buy food. The homelessness in California that compelled some college students to live in their cars also made it difficult to carry on their homework. They also used to feel insecure while sleeping in their vehicles during the night.

The Solution to Better Tomorrow

The increased rate of homelessness in California among the Community college students can get solved by the state government's collaboration with the federal government to build an emergency shelter near the colleges to provide a conducive living place for the vulnerable students. The government then should provide meals and bending that that ease the living to the students during their study time. The state government of California can also advise the College Board of management to create a specific parking place for the distance learning students that sleep in their car during their time (Parker, 37). Free and safe parking facilities offered to the homeless student will aid in solving mental health problems to the students that are homeless and help to carry out their studies effectively.

To solve the college student homelessness crisis permanently in California, the state government should introduce a permanent supportive housing program after introducing the emergency shelters for the rising cases of homelessness among the students. The government can help in solving the increasing instances of homelessness permanently by subsidizing the cost of building the housing facilities in the colleges and offering advice to the managers of higher institutions on the importance of building permanent houses that can accommodate all the students (Wideman, 62). The state government can also help in solving the cases of homelessness by encouraging affordable housing programs to all the citizens in the state. The affordable housing will aid all the low-income earners to acquire a permanent regular place to sleep.

Work Cited

Brown, Greg, Sara Sanders, and Pat Reed. "Using public participatory mapping to inform general land use planning and zoning." Landscape and Urban Planning 177 (2018): 64-74.

Blomley, Nicholas. "Land use, planning, and the "difficult character of property"." Planning Theory & Practice 18.3 (2017): 351-364.

Barbour, Elisa. "Sustainability planning by Metropolitan Planning Organizations: California and national trends." Transportation, Land Use, and Environmental Planning. Elsevier, 2020. 439-467.

Parker, Cory A. "Homeless Negotiations of Public Space in Two California Cities." (2019).

Wideman, Trevor J., and Nick Lombardo. "Geographies of land use: Planning, property, and law." Geography Compass 13.12 (2019): e12473.

Infranca, John. "The New State Zoning: Land Use Preemption amid a Housing Crisis." BCL Rev. 60 (2019): 823.

Trounstine, Jessica. "The Geography of Inequality: How Land Use Regulation Produces Segregation." American Political Science Review (2020): 1-13.